


Finger-Painting

by vanillafluffy



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Finger Painting, Fluff, Gen, Home Improvement, Painting, Venom Gets Creative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-02-04 08:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: For the prompt, "Venom discovers finger painting".





	Finger-Painting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



The hardware store is running a sale: Buy a gallon of primer and a gallon of paint and get a quart of contrasting color of your choice free. Eddie’s bedroom needs a fresh coat of paint--the previous occupant wrote about his conquests on the wall and some of it is pretty nasty stuff. The free quart isn’t a big deal at the time--the store has a display of ideas for painting trim to pop against the background color, how to tape it off and create bold geometric designs and so on. He selects a deep blue that’s the color of his favorite shirt and figures it’ll look good on the doors and windowsill.

The painting process goes smoothly. The primer covers up the salacious scribbles. The top coat (Vanilla Bean) is neutral without being harsh. He’s got a couple rolls of painter’s tape and is getting ready to mask off the window surround when his phone rings. It’s his editor. Eddie frowns.

“Could you do me a favor?” he asks Venom. “Shake the hell out of this, would you?” He indicates the can of blue paint (Dungaree) and takes the call.

Bonnie wants to discuss the piece he’s working on. She’s read the copies of his notes and has some suggestions. Some editors can be really obnoxious about that kind of thing, but she understands where he wants to go with the story and has actually come up with several possible sources for additional content. Eddie jots down notes and isn’t paying attention to his symbiote. It isn’t until he’s completed the call and turns around that he sees what Venom has done.

 _If that was red paint, it would look like a bloodbath,_ is his dazed first impression. The wall where the head of the bed usually goes has been embellished with streaks and blobs of blue. 

Venom has molded itself around the open paint can to hold it, dipping an extruded tentacle into it and applying it to a section of the wall. As Eddie watches, as the tentacle approaches the flat surface, it divides into a series of smaller tentacles, each leaving a vertical line of paint in its wake.

The symbiote is concentrating fiercely on what it’s doing. Eddie doesn’t interrupt as Venom’s tentacles merge again and it begins to dot the base of the streaks with precise smudges.

 **How do you like my mural, Eddie?** Venom asks.

That’s a mural? He knows Venom knows what murals are--the symbiote came along when Eddie interviewed a graffiti artist who was starting to go mainstream--but what the heck is it?

“That’s really something. Very monochromatic,” he answers diplomatically. “Um, what’s it supposed to be?”

 **It’s San Francisco. See, there’s the big building we climbed, and that’s the hill we jumped over on your motorcycle, and that’s the cable car and this is where the lobsters live!** Venom points out each landmark with a blue-tipped tentacle.

Eddie points to the stripes he just saw emerge. “Is that the Golden Gate Bridge?”

It’s a wild guess on his part, but Venom is pleased. **Yes. And there we are on the motorcycle!** He indicates the smudges at the bottom.

He never would’ve guessed any of that if Venom hadn’t explained first, but now that it has, Eddie is touched that Venom’s painted a record of some of their adventures. Sure, Venom is alien and literally doesn’t see things the same way Eddie does, but for the first time, he’s demonstrated that he, too, has imagination, creativity and an appreciation of beauty.

“I really like it, I think it’s a terrific mural. Thanks.”

 

…


End file.
